On a dating site, unwanted content is not a cosmetic problem. One scammer who takes money from a member costs you that member, everyone they tell, and sometimes a chargeback. One explicit photo on a public page can cost you your payment provider.

The platform gives you three lines of defence. They work at different moments, and you normally want all three.

Where to start. Switch on banned words and reports on day one — they cost you almost nothing. Add moderation before publishing for photos only: photos are where the real risk lives, and checking every text message by hand will bury you.

Members upload photos, video and audio, write messages, leave comments. You cannot know the intentions of people you have never met, and moderation tools are how you filter what appears on your site.

Everything waiting for your attention is collected in Moderation in the admin panel (/admin/moderation): profiles, photos, audio and video, offline payments, abuse reports.

Each type of upload can be set to one of three modes.

What owners usually do: photos before publishing, texts after. A photo is seen by everyone who passes the profile and is the thing your payment provider will ask about. A text message is seen by one person, and that person can report it.

One warning about moderating before publishing. A new member uploads a photo and waits. If the wait is a day, many never come back. If you choose this mode, check uploads at least twice a day, or hand the job to a moderator — see how to add a moderator with limited access.

You list the words that are not allowed, and the system checks them in everything members write. Switch it on with the Check banned words option in moderation settings.

What to put on the list, in order of usefulness:

Do not overdo it. Too long a list catches ordinary conversation, members stop understanding why their messages fail, and they leave. Start with twenty words that matter and add more when you see a real pattern.

Your members see things you never will — a message that turned strange, a photo that belongs to someone else. Reports turn thousands of people into your moderators, for free.

Reports arrive in the same moderation section. See member reports and complaints for how to set up the reasons and handle what comes in.

The rule that makes this work: answer every report, even with one line. A member who reports someone and hears nothing back stops reporting — and stops trusting the site.

The tools above are part of the platform. These are add-ons, bought separately.

Nudity filter — checks uploaded photos automatically and flags explicit ones before a person looks at them. Worth it once photo volume passes what you can review by hand, and worth it earlier if your payment provider is strict about content.

Scam detection — checks new registrations against known fraud patterns and flags the suspicious ones.

Profile verification — members confirm they are a real person, and verified profiles carry a mark. Raises trust across the whole site, not just on the verified profiles.

Availability and current prices are on the pricing page and on each add-on card.

How much moderation does a small site need?
Photos before publishing, checked twice a day, plus banned words and reports. That holds until roughly a few hundred active members.

Someone is asking my members for money. What do I do?
Block the profile, then look at who else they wrote to — the same person usually approaches many members with the same text. Add the phrases they used to the banned words list.

Can I hand moderation to someone else?
Yes. A moderator account sees content waiting for review but not payments or settings. See adding a moderator.

Note: the moderation wall on the main admin page has been disabled since the Passion version. Use the Moderation section instead.